After a lot of intense development work and testing we now finally have an iOS Orbiter available for LinuxMCE - big thanks to Foxi352

Search for 'RoamingOrb' in the App store either on your iOS device or from inside iTunes on your laptop or PC (you will need a valid iTunes account to download the App - but it is free)

Foxi352 has done a brilliant job getting RoamingOrb 1.01 out the door and I can tell you the Apple App approvals process threw us a 'curve ball' at the 11th hour...but we worked around that and 1.01 is up on the App store. A bit of a milestone in so many ways really;

- Firstly its an App many people here in the community have wanted for a long time now- Its an App developed by a developer who is new to the community - we need many more too!- Its an example of how if you focus in on a limited part of this project and your given the right docs and support/encouragement you can achieve a lot very quickly- ...and lastly but definitely not least its the first small(ish) step on a path to a re-engineered model for Orbiters and building UI's for LinuxMCE (its not the only path to this...witness the great research & experimentation going on here in Clutter by tschak909 and others)

Now as ever with software development, and this is elongated by the App development process under iOS, RoamingOrb 1.01 is missing a number of refinements that are now in testing. Expanding testing beyond a small group is not easy under iOS because each iOS devices UDID has to be 'burnt' into the App before release...but I am sure there will be an updated RoamingOrb App in the near future that will incorporate a number of refinements. Having said that the 1.01 release has gone through a lot of testing by Foxi352 and my team at CHT on every current iOS device platform (iPad included) and all current iOS device releases and we believe it is incredibly stable. In fact I can honestly say that I have never seen any kind of fatal bug at all during testing.

As to speed...yes its blindingly fast compared to all other Touch Orbiters and in use I think you will quickly find it a joy to use - I do ;-)

Now in the next few weeks alongside RoamingOrb 1.01 CHT will release another iOS Orbiter, Dianemo iOS Orbiter, which is based on the RoamingOrb codebase (a later revision than 1.01 though) but with a number of enhancements and also a number of features that are only relevant to Dianemo installations. Foxi352 is the lead Dev for both versions by the way. The Dianemo iOS Orbiter (we may change its name...as it does not roll off the tongue!) will also be Free to download from the App store and will be fully compatible with both Dianemo & LinuxMCE. I will outline the Dianemo iOS Orbiters features soon here.

The source code for both RoamingOrb & Dianemo iOS Orbiter will be freely available soon too - probably in the svn but possibly via the Wiki (you'll know as son as this is decided)

HiNoobie here who hasn't built his md's yet because he is still trying to figure out how it can all fit together. Am I understanding it correctly? If I buy an Apple something eg. Ipad this can be used as a mobile orbiter on any of the md's, I don't have to worry about usb-uirt's, remotes,etc anymore.?

HiNoobie here who hasn't built his md's yet because he is still trying to figure out how it can all fit together. Am I understanding it correctly? If I buy an Apple something eg. Ipad this can be used as a mobile orbiter on any of the md's, I don't have to worry about usb-uirt's, remotes,etc anymore.?

Here's hoping!

Thanks

Hi Bushtech,

Yes the RoamingOrb App can be used as a touch based Orbiter... ie a remote control for your system. Almost all of our Dianemo systems now ship in this configuration in fact as most customers are choosing to use their iPhone's, iPod's or increasingly iPad's as the UI to control their homes.

If you have devices attached to your system that need to be controlled in some way ie via IR or rs232 interfaces then you will still need those control interfaces for those purposes. But you would not need to use an USB-UIRT with an IR Remote for control as you can do everything with the RoamingOrb App.

RoamingOrb 1.01 is compatible with all current iOS devices as long as they are able to run iOS 3.2 or later.

So I can use the Touch Orbiter to start playing a movie from the core via the md. Should I want to adjust settings like Dolby or 5ch stereo on my AVR I just grab the AVR's remote.?

Thanks

Dries

You can use any Touch Orbiter (or any Orbiter in fact) to control an MD by selecting the MD's Room or Entertainment Area from the on-screen menu of the Touch Orbiter. Once you have set your Touch Orbiter to the MD's Room then you can use the Touch orbiter to control the devices in that Room eg the MD or any devices controlled by it or the system generally in the room.

However if you have an Amplifier in the MD's room and you want to control that Amplifier then you will need some kind of control interface to control it with eg an IR Blaster such as the USB-UIRT or an RS232 interface. These control interfaces send the commands to the device they are configured to control eg in your case your Amplifier and these commands are triggered by you (or automatically in some situations by the system) when you touch a UI control on the Touch Orbiter's display (ie in this case the RoamingOrb App running on an iOS device).

Once you have started the movie playing you can choose another room from your Touch Orbiter and control that without effecting the playback of the media you kicked off in the original room.

Hope the above helps... Search the Forum for more details on these basics of the system.

Been playing a bit more with this yesterday and today. Still very much enjoying the new toy

A couple questions that should not be taken to mean that I'm complaining about what you've provided or suggesting you need to do more work:

1) Is multitasking support possible? You'd obviously want to avoid battery drainage from constant polling by doing a suspend-state type thing if the protocol allows. The splash screen on reopening the app is pretty quick, but I'm wondering if it could be eliminated or made faster.

2) Is there any possible future for follow-me via blue-tooth in this app?

Been playing a bit more with this yesterday and today. Still very much enjoying the new toy

A couple questions that should not be taken to mean that I'm complaining about what you've provided or suggesting you need to do more work:

1) Is multitasking support possible? You'd obviously want to avoid battery drainage from constant polling by doing a suspend-state type thing if the protocol allows. The splash screen on reopening the app is pretty quick, but I'm wondering if it could be eliminated or made faster.

Yes multitasking support is possible but currently it did not seem to make much sense - later as we add more event handling capabilities to the iOS Orbiter then it might ie Low Disc space event received by Orbiter make user aware of that if App is not in the foreground etc etc. Currently because of the proxy_orbiters design if you exit the iOS Orbiter and then launch it again it returns to exactly where you were. The only downside is the slight pause when it attemps to re-establish communication with the Core - yes the Splash adds somewhat to that but not that much in reality as there is processing/comms happening in parallel. However we are looking at removing the Splash and and adding an 'About' screen that would contain the splash image and some credits, version No. and promotional info for the project etc... the about screen would be accessed from a new UI panel that is under consideration.

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2) Is there any possible future for follow-me via blue-tooth in this app?

Yes I think Follow-me maybe possible...but Foxi352 is the best person to comment on that as it will need low-level access to the iOS Bluetooth API's and i am not sure if that is possible. Clearly it would be useful too if the the iOS Orbiter (and other Touch Orbiters where the host OS allows this type of capability) could integrate with other Apps/software on the device so that some level of inter App integration is possible.